faster with age

    Ran 10 miles this morning in a light rain. It was nice. It's been a rare thing this past summer. Just went at an easy comfortable pace 8:51 ave. My back is feeling better. It's still slightly sore but much better than last week. My hamstring didn't bother me at all at that pace but my calf is still complaining a bit. I'm hoping to do a 20 miler Wed. or thur. if my body will allow it.

    Went for 30 mile mt. bike ride this morning. 32 degrees to start. Warmed up to about 55.

    Today I wanted to get in  one more long run before SGM since my mileage has been so minimal since my injury.  I wanted to get in as many miles as I could but at the same time make it a run I could recover from as quickly as possible with the marathon 10 days away. I decided start out taking walk breaks to hopfully aid in a quicker recovery. Temp started at 30 deg and around 60 at finish. Perfect. I felt good today. One of those mornings where your pace ends up being faster than you think your running. I started out walking 1 min. every 1/2 mile. for the first 10 miles I averaged right at 9 min. pace. Since I figure I lose about a minute each mile from the walking my running was at 8 min. pace. Miles 10 thru 15 I was at 8:34 pace[7:34 pace during running time]. At mile 15 I stopped taking the walk breaks and ran the next 5 [up to mile 20] at 7:28 pace. I was suprised how good I still felt at 20 so I slowed the pace a little and went 3 more at 8:13 pace. A lot more fatigue started setting in on the last 1 1/2 but normal for the end of a run that long. My hamstring felt as good as it has on any run since the injury and my calf did pretty good too but my back complained a bit throughout the run more than it has on the last couple of runs. I hope it doesn't mean I have another flareup coming. I took ibuprofin afterward and have been icing it a lot and crossing my fingers. This run went much better than I expected and I hardley feel beat up from it considering my lack of mileage the past 7 weeks [as of yesterday] since I tore the hamstring. I'm hoping to get in one good MP run on Saturday and a few easy runs over the next 8 days and thats about as ready as I can get. I feel like I have just reached the point I can start training normal again. Oh what I would like to do with another 6 or 8 weeks. Maybe next time. 

    Overall pace 8:28 time 3:15:02

    PM  Went 7 miles on my bike to help keep lose.

    I went out bowhunting elk this morning. my back was a little sore when I got up this morning so I took some ibuprofin before I left. I did some hiking and everything felt normal after yesterdays long run [maybe the ibuprofin].  Later I did a 15 mile bike ride. Felt great.

    Ran 5 miles at an easy recovery 9:05 pace. Everything felt pretty good even my back felt better. I thing I accomplished the quick recovery I was hoping for after Wednesdays 23 miler. Tomorrow I am hoping to run som MP miles if everything feels good. I know it's getting close to the marathon but since I haven't been able to do much until now I'm hoping it will do more good than harm and I still have next week to recover and taper a little.

    I wanted to get in some MP miles and some downhill miles to try and get a better idea of where I'm at fitness wise and how I should pace myself for the marathon saturday. I went over to Weston canyon and ran down a 3 mile stretch of the canyon. It's mostly only a 1 to 2% grade for all but about the last 600 meters that is closer to 6%. My wife and son went along to walk as far as they could get before I picked them up so they could drop me off and park the car back at the bottom again. This gave me a 4 min. break between each 3 miles run. I ran the first 3 at 6:55 pace. The next 3 at 6:45 pace and the third 3 at 6:48 pace. 6:50 pace for all 9 miles. I had good news and bad news from this run. The good is that it didn't bother my back or calf or any of the other little aches and pains that I have been dealing with from trying to rebuild running fitness to quickly. The bad is that I am way behind where I was at in July. In July I did this run and was running closer to 6:20 pace at a similar HR and effort. The worse news is that my lower hamstring got very tight right at the end. It seamed to come from the last 6% grade hill where I kind of sped up and let fly down the hill. It felt ok later after icing it so I don't think I did any damage but it tells me I better watch my pace down the hills next week. If it wasn't for the hamstring I didn't feel that tired and felt I could have gone a lot farther. Probably my biking has me in a lot better cardio shape than the shape my lack of running has my legs in.  I do have some excuses I can throw in about possibilties why the effort was hard for the pace. I did go hunting Fri night and Sat. morning and did a lot of hiking. After returning from the morning hunt I ate a whole lot of waffles shortly before running and could feel the effects the whole run. And there was also a substantial headwind the whole way. Unfortunatly I can't find a good reason why the hamstring pain might not be there next week. On the long run I did wednesday my hamstring didn't bother me at  all and I did a lot in the 7:20 to 7:25 pace range but it was more flat. I guess it was good to find this out now as it will definatly affect how I approach the race.